It had been an uneventful 10-plus hour flight from Seoul, South Korea, approaching San Francisco’s airport on a clear summer day. Then, in a few horrifying seconds, that calm was shattered.

‘Lopped off entirely’

A fireball erupted after the Boeing 777 airliner hit the runway hard around 11:30 a.m., rocked back and forth, spun around, shearing off the plane’s tail. Scores of passengers and crew climbed out — some jumping, others sliding down evacuation chutes as flames and smoke billowed from the aircraft’s windows.

Two people were found dead outside the plane, according to San Francisco fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White. The airline identified the dead girls as students Wang Linjia and Ye Mengyuan, both 16. Somehow, 305 others survived.

Video taken soon after the crash and posted on YouTube showed dark gray smoke rising from the plane, which was upright on its belly, with no landing gear evident. Its roof was charred and, in spots, gone entirely. The back of the plane appeared to have been lopped off entirely..

‘No signs of terrorism’

Investigators from Washington and Seoul are heading to northern California trying to answer a simple question. How did this happen? While the exact cause will take months to determine, the South Korean Transport Ministry said “the tail of the Asiana flight hit the runway and the aircraft veered to the left out of the runway.”

Members of South Korea’s Aviation and Railway Accident Investigation Board will travel to San Francisco, that agency said. They’ll be joined by a “go-to” team from the United States’ National Transportation Safety Board, led by chairman Deborah Hersman. Right now, they’re not sure what they’ll find, though a U.S. national security official has said there are no signs of terrorism.

What do you think caused this deadly plane crash? Feel free to share your speculations with us via the comment box below!

European officials reacted with fury Sunday to a report that the U.S. National Security Agency spied on EU offices. The European Union warned that if the report is accurate, it will have tremendous repercussions.

‘Electronic eavesdropping operation’

The outrage from European officials over the weekend was the latest fallout since Edward Snowden, a former National Security Agency computer contractor, started spilling details of U.S. surveillance programs to reporters earlier this month.

Citing information from secret documents obtained by Snowden, the German news magazine Der Spiegel reported Sunday that several U.S. spying operations targeted European Union leaders. Der Spiegel said it had “in part seen” documents from Snowden that describe how the National Security Agency bugged EU officials’ Washington and New York offices and conducted an “electronic eavesdropping operation” that tapped into a EU building in Brussels, Belgium.

‘Seeking asylum’

The Guardian newspaper reported that one NSA document leaked by Snowden describes 38 embassies and missions as “targets” and details surveillance methods that include planting bugs in communications equipment and collecting transmissions with specialized antennae. Targets included France, Italy, Greece, Japan, Mexico, South Korea, India and Turkey, according to The Guardian.

Snowden has revealed himself as the source of documents outlining a massive effort by the NSA to track cell phone calls and monitor the e-mail and Internet traffic of virtually all Americans. Critics slam him as a traitor. Supporters hail him as a hero. Now Snowden, who faces espionage charges in the United States, is in Russia and seeking asylum from Ecuador.

Do you believe the NSA was really spying on EU offices? What impact could this report have on the relations between the U.S. and Europe?